He was very rich, partly owing to his having no expenses, as he had no workmen to pay, everything being done for him by these little devils, and partly from his first wife, whom he courted in France. Pierre went over to France alone, in a small open boat. The girl he married, who was herself a lady, thought he was of gentle blood. After he married her he was most cruel, and spoilt all her furniture. For instance, her parlour was mirrored from ceiling to floor, and he brought her horses up into the room, and the poor things became excited when they saw other horses, and kicked the looking-glasses and broke all the other furniture. This wife died of a broken heart, and for his second wife Pierre married a Sark girl, little more than a child.
If Pierre wanted his hedges repaired he simply gave the order to his little helpers, and the next morning they were done. Pierre’s daughter—“la petite Betsy”—used to feed the cow at night in the churchyard, and she was seen returning home at daybreak with the cow, looking thoroughly well fed. Consequently nobody would buy butter or milk from him.
When Pierre had nothing else to give his workers to do they used to forge money, and their hammers could be heard by the passers by.[360]
Old Mrs. Le Messurier, in Sark, also confirmed a great many of these details in 1896. She said he, Pierre de Carteret, was well known to be a famous sorcerer. He had pictures of the Devil on his walls, and little images of Satan were found in his house after his death, and promptly burnt by the incomers. He could build a boat, alter a loft, or build a wall in a single night, because he had “des esprits malins” to help him. He was an excessively bad man and used to smuggle ball and ammunition to France, to help the French against the English in the war. The English found him out and came over with bayonets to take him, but he hid down his well, and could not be found.
Out at St. Pierre-du-Bois they still tell the tale of a Frenchman, who was a “sorcier,” and in league with the Devil.
One day he entered a farm kitchen, where he found all the young people playing a game, in which they used a number of doubles, placed in a jam pot, for counters.
He said “I can turn all those doubles into mice.”
They did not believe him, so he took the pot, shook it, and turned it upside down on the table. Then he turned to one of the girls standing by and said “Now, take up that pot.” She did so, and numbers of mice ran out of it, all over the table, with their tails cocked up!
Of the same man another story is told. One morning he wanted some of his neighbours to play cards with him, but they said they could not spare the time, for they must weed their parsnips.
He replied—“If you will come, your parsnips shall be weeded by dinner time.”